Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Book Condition:LIKE NEW/UNREAD!!! Text is Clean and Unmarked! Has a small black line or red dot on bottom/exterior edge of pages. Tracking is not available for orders shipped outside of the United States.

A panoramic overview of biotechnologies that can endlessly boost human capabilities and the drastic changes these “superhuman” traits could triggerBiotechnology is moving fast. In the coming decades, advanced pharmaceuticals, bioelectronics, and genetic interventions will be used not only to heal the sick but to boost human physical and mental performance to unprecedented levels. People will have access to pills that make them stronger and faster, informatic devices will interface seamlessly with the human brain, and epigenetic modification may allow people to reshape their own physical and mental identities at will.

Until recently, such major technological watersheds—like the development of metal tools or the industrialization of manufacturing—came about incrementally over centuries or longer. People and social systems had time to adapt: they gradually developed new values, norms, and habits to accommodate the transformed material conditions. But contemporary society is dangerously unprepared for the dramatic changes it is about to experience down this road on which it is already advancing at an accelerating pace.

The results will no doubt be mixed. People will live longer, healthier lives, will fine-tune their own thought processes, and will generate staggeringly complex and subtle forms of knowledge and insight. But these technologies also threaten to widen the rift between rich and poor, to generate new forms of social and economic division, and to force people to engage in constant cycles of upgrades and boosts merely to keep up. Individuals who boost their traits beyond a certain threshold may acquire such extreme capabilities that they will no longer be recognized as unambiguously human.

In this important and timely book, prize-winning historian Michael Bess provides a clear, nontechnical overview of cutting-edge biotechnology and paints a vivid portrait of a near-future society in which bioenhancement has become a part of everyday life. He surveys the ethical questions raised by the enhancement enterprise and explores the space for human agency in dealing with the challenges that these technologies will present.

Headed your way over the coming decades: new biotechnologies that can powerfully alter your body and mind.

The possibilities are tantalizing:

• Rejuvenation therapies offering much longer lives (160 and even beyond) in full vigor and mental acuity • Cognitive enhancement through chemical or bioelectronic means (the rough equivalent of doubling or tripling IQ scores) • Epigenetic tools for altering some of your genetically influenced traits at any point in your lifetime (body shape, athletic ability, intelligence, personality) • Bioelectronic devices for modulating your own brain processes, including your “pleasure centers” (a potentially non-stop high) • Direct control of machines by thought, and perhaps direct communication with other people, brain-to-brain (a new dimension of sharing and intimacy)

But some of the potential consequences are also alarming:

• A growing rift between the biologically enhanced and those who can’t afford such modifications • A constant cycle of upgrades and boosts as the bar of “normal” rises ever higher—“Humans 95, Humans XP, Humans 8”• The fragmentation of humankind into rival “bioenhancement clusters” • A gradually blurring boundary between “person” and “product” • Extreme forms of self-modification, with some individuals no longer recognized as unambiguously human

Editorial Reviews

Review

“In the future, accelerating technology and unexpected, revolutionary events—most of which will never be predicted by futurists—may produce a society as alien as some of our tools. Bess delivers an insightful philosophical analysis of how we must adjust.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Rejuvenation therapies that could potentially extend human lifespans to 160 years or more, chemical or bioelectronic cognitive enhancement that could double or triple IQ scores, bioelectronic devices for modulating brain processes including ‘pleasure centers,’ so-called ‘designer babies,’ and much more are poised to cross the threshold from science fiction to reality in the near future. Michael Bess offers a sober prediction of how such advances will directly affect human society, and the ethical dilemmas that could result. Our Grandchildren Redesigned is fascinating from cover to cover and near-impossible to put down. Highly recommended!”—The Midwest Book Review

About the Author

Michael Bess is the Chancellor’s Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. He has received major fellowships from the J. S. Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Human Genome Research Institute, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Fulbright program. His previous books include Choices Under Fire and The Light-Green Society.

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

This is one of the first books about technology changes that will change life as we know it now, written by a distinguished writer and thinker from the liberal arts. Although I do not agree with some of Professor Bess's conclusions and recommendations, he makes well balanced arguments that need to be considered by more than the scientific community creating all of this marvelous, new technology. Further, he has a blog welcoming all who want to be heard about these and other coming changes. This is an important book.

Any review of this book would have to start out by mentioning the fact that the author, Michael Bess, is a Professor of history specializing in the social and cultural impacts of technology. This is the direction the book comes from. The author looks at this subject from this particular angle. Those interested in a detailed analysis and discussion of the specific technologies, in particular electrical or mechanical, that will enable the modifications of humans over the next 40 or so years should instead see the relevant chapters of Ray Kurzweil’s “The Singularity is Near”. The few chapters of that book do an excellent chapter at discussing the technologies in detail and from the perspective of Dr Kurzweil (i.e., from the view of an electrical engineer).

Dr. Bess starts off his book with a handful of chapters providing a high level view of the various technologies that may enable humanity to modify itself. He provides a discussion of pharmaceuticals, bioelectronics, genetics and other technologies that he believes will make this possible. As stated previously however, this discussion is very high level. It is not for the knowledgeable or for those who seek a more detailed examination of these technologies or, for that matter, anyone with anything more than an introductory level of (or no) knowledge regarding these technologies.

Then Dr. Bess goes into various social issues such as impact on inequality, discrimination, competitiveness between humans, etc. In regard to this he proves, at least in this reviewer’s opinion, more successful than in his discussion of the technologies. Given he is a history professor specializing in the impact of these technologies this is no surprise.

Dr. Bess then goes into how this will impact humanity’s identity, a particularly important question considering that these technologies can (and probably will) change the meaning of being human. This is not only in terms of extending the lifespan of humans, which will have a minimal impact on humanity’s identity, but in terms of many of the impacts of specific technologies. For example, modifications to the brain that will permit humans to process large amounts of information in a parallel method (like today’s “thinking” supercomputers such as Watson) will blur the line of time in the thought process. We will be able to think not in one string of thought at any one time but in many. We may end up having more “artificial” components within us than “natural”. Humans may be able to communicate via thought and networks instead of through voice (and hence be able to communicate with large numbers of other persons or machines simultaneously). All this implies humanity looking more android than human. More specifically, more like the “Borg” from “Star Trek: The Next Generation”.

Dr. Bess, like many others including technologists, is careful to point out that not only will there be positives with human modification (i.e., extended lifespan, mitigation or elimination of many diseases, ability for greater accomplishments due to greater abilities, etc.) but there will also be dangers. Dangers include not only the impact on social structures (i.e., creation of underclass among those unable to afford cutting edge technologies, etc.) and on humanity’s identity but simply dangers stemming from the direct technological uncertainty on implementing this technology in terms of, say, physiology. For example, pharmaceuticals that enable one to keep all facts in one’s memory, as opposed to forgetting, may lead some unforeseen effects on the brain. Too much information input may lead to a society where anxiety and neurosis may run amuck. And so on. He warns that humanity will have to move slowly so as to be able to spot such problems before it is too late. International cooperation is something else he also emphasizes to this end. Considering the zero sum game such technologies will have on people and societies (i.e., the individual or society who chooses to wait will fall behind in ability to find work, the world pecking order, etc.) though many of his recommendations, in this regard, seem little more than wishful thinking.

Dr. Hess concludes by emphasizing that people will have to be selective in the implants and modifications they should adopt. They will have to think first and really, really know themselves. Knowing oneself is not a recommendation that is recent though. Socrates gave that advice 25 centuries ago. “Know thyself” is one of his most famous maxims. Yet, despite this, this has still been a problem since. Few people seem to have been able to answer this question and to act upon it in a meaningful way. Why would anyone expect this to change in the future? Hence how will humans of the future be able to make the correct choices as to how to modify themselves?

In short, this book is geared to the novice who has little knowledge of the technologies discussed and has read or thought little about their social impacts and their impacts on human identity. For that audience this book is worthy of a 4 star or so. For those with more extensive knowledge of the technologies and who has read and thought more on social impacts and issues of human identity the book has nothing novel or profound to say. For that audience 3 stars or so.

A last comment is in regard to the performance of the audiobook. It is not bad but nothing to shout about either though. Pretty much a three-star performance.

Our Grandchildren Redesigned offers a comprehensive and balanced look at the inevitable future of human enhancement. Unlike some futurists, who tend to approach these issues with a strong pro-enhancement or anti-enhancement bias, Michael Bess brings an unwaveringly pragmatic viewpoint to the subject matter. His thesis is that our best hope for integrating enhancements into our society, without creating undesirable gaps between the haves and have-nots, compromising our values, or losing touch with what it means to be human, is to create a worldwide regulatory framework that keeps tabs on enhancement technologies and ensures they progress in a measured and sensible way, ensuring access to basic enhancements by all and banning certain technologies that pose too great of a threat to our values. He effectively uses hypothetical scenarios to show how various types of genetic, pharmaceutical and bioelectric enhancements would impact our day-to-day lifestyles, and draws upon these examples to frame important questions about justice and identity.

While the challenges he identifies are daunting, and the solutions he proposes are often complex, in the end he leaves us with an optimistic message that the human race can influence its future evolution by making careful choices about what enhances and detracts from important human values. I can only hope that leaders in these fields read this book and consider its important message.